For the love of maps : foreword / by Dava Sobel -- Introduction : the map that wrote itself -- What great minds knew -- The men who sold the world -- The world takes shape -- Venice, China and a trip to the moon -- The mystery of Vinland -- Welcome to Amerigo -- What's the good of Mercator? -- The world in a book -- Mapping a cittee (without forder troble) -- Six increasingly coordinated tales of the Ordnance Survey -- The legendary mountains of Kong -- The opening of America and the gridding of Manhattan -- Cholera and the map that stopped it -- "X" marks the spot : Treasure island -- The worst journey in the world to the last place to be mapped -- Maps in all our hands : a brief history of the guidebook -- Casablanca, Harry Potter and where Jennifer Aniston lives -- How to make a very big globe -- The biggest map dealer, the biggest map thief -- Driving into lakes : how GPS put the world in a box -- Pass go and proceed directly to Skyrim -- Mapping the brain -- Epilogue : the instant, always-on, me-mapping of everywhere.

Garfield's best-selling Just My Type (2011) was about typefaces. Now he's done the same for maps. The result is not deep history but it is pleasurable history nonetheless: readers will enjoy this romp through 16,000 years of mapmaking, beginning with a hunter's map found in a cave in northern Spain and proceeding all the way to today's GPS, Google Maps, video games, and Me Mapping. Aimed at educated lay readers who want both to nourish their mind and divert it, the book dispenses a good deal of information in the process: the problems the earth's curvature has posed in its representation, how maps reflect national and cultural biases, how maps have been used to solve problems like the spread of cholera in 1854 London, the technical progress made in mapping. "Maps are only human, after all," quips Garfield. VERDICT Readers of popular history will enjoy this entertaining and informative book. This is popular history but not "history light."[See Prepub Alert, 7/22/12.]-David Keymer, Modesto, CA (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Innumerable modes of seeing the world unfold in this exuberant history of maps. Garfield (Just My Type) loosely follows the development of cartography, taking in the precociously scientific geography of the ancient Greeks; medieval England's Hereford Mappa Mundi, drenched in Christian allegory and teeming with mythical beasts; the Age of Exploration's heroic maps of newly discovered, sketchily drawn, and wrongly designated landmasses (America got its name from a cartographer's erroneous belief that Amerigo Vespucci discovered it); the 19th-century map that established cholera as a water-borne disease; modern GPS systems, and video game fantasy maps. Along the way he pursues diverting cartographical anecdotes and oddities, including the centuries-long consensus that California was an island, the lingering conceit that women can't read maps, and the appearance and disappearance of canals on maps of Mars. Garfield's coverage of this terrain, lavishly illustrated with reproductions of famous maps, is broad but paper-thin-more a meandering guided tour than a systematic survey. Still, his droll humor and infectious curiosity will keep readers engrossed as he uncovers surprising ways in which maps chart our imaginations as much as they do the ground underfoot. Photos, illus., maps. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Summary

Cartography enthusiasts rejoice: the bestselling author of Just My Type reveals the fascinating relationship between man and map. nbsp; nbsp; Simon Garfield's Just My Type illuminated the world of fonts and made everyone take a stand on Comic Sans and care about kerning. Now Garfield takes on a subject even dearer to our fanatical human hearts: maps. nbsp; Imagine a world without maps. How would we travel? Could we own land? What would men and women argue about in cars? Scientists have even suggested that mapping#151;not language#151;is what elevated our prehistoric ancestors from ape-dom. Follow the history of maps from the early explorers' maps and the awe-inspiring medieval Mappa Mundi to Google Maps and the satellite renderings on our smartphones, Garfield explores the unique way that maps relate and realign our history#151;and reflect the best and worst of what makes us human. nbsp; Featuring a foreword by Dava Sobel and packed with fascinating tales of cartographic intrigue, outsize personalities, and amusing #147;pocket maps" on an array of subjects from how to fold a map to the strangest maps on the Internet, On the Map is a rich historical tapestry infused with Garfield's signature narrative flair. Map-obsessives and everyone who loved Just My Type will be lining up to join Garfield on his audacious journey through time and around the globe. nbsp;

Table of Contents

For the Love of Maps: Foreword
Dava Sobel

p. 11

Introduction: The Map That Wrote Itself

p. 15

1

What Great Minds Knew

p. 21

How the ancient Greeks-Eratosthenes and Ptolemy-first worked out the size and shape of the world and our place upon it.

2

The Men Who Sold the World

p. 42

The day Britain's greatest cartographic treasure-the medieval Mappa Mundi-went to the auction houses to fix a leaky roof.

It's 1250, Do You Know Where You Are?

p. 58

3

The World Takes Shape

p. 63

The world centers on Jerusalem-and the Poles appear.

Here Be Dragons

p. 72

4

Venice, China and a Trip to the Moon

p. 75

How the Italians became the world's greatest mapmakers, and then the Germans, and then the Dutch. And how a Venetian friar discovered the secrets of the East and ended up on the moon.

5

The Mystery of Vinland

p. 87

Did Norse sailors really reach and map America before Columbus?

Or is the world's most curious map fakery's finest hour?

6

Welcome to Amerigo

p. 103

In which Ptolemy reappears in Europe and America gets named after the wrong man.

California as an Island

p. 121

7

What's the Good of Mercator?

p. 125

How the world looked in 1569-and today, even if the UN still favors the Postel Azimuthal Equidistant.

Keeping It Quiet: Drake's Silver Voyage

p. 135

8

The World in a Book

p. 140

In which the Atlas becomes a craze in seventeenth-century Holland, is adopted by The Times, and then turns to agitprop.

Lions, Eagles and Gerrymanders

p. 160

9

Mapping a Cittee (without forder troble)

p. 167

London gets the map bug, too, pioneers street mapping, and John Ogilby charts the course of every major road in Britannia.

10

Six Increasingly Coordinated Tales of the Ordnance Survey

p. 181

Britain, spurred by Jacobite revolt, makes the Ordnance Survey, extending to India. But what is the symbol for a picnic site?

A Nineteenth-Century Murder Map

p. 200

11

The Legendary Mountains of Kong

p. 204

How an impassable mountain range spread and spread, until a French army officer found it wasn't there.

The Low-down Lying Case of Benjamin Morrell

p. 220

12

The Opening of America and the Gridding of Manhattan

p. 223

How Lewis and Clark filled out the American canvas, and how New York plotted its future.

13

Cholera and the Map that Stopped It

p. 235

How mapping played its part in identifying the cause of the disease.

Across Australia with Burke and Wills

p. 246

14

"X" Marks the Spot: Treasure Island

p. 252

Treasure maps in literature and life.

J.M. Barrie Fails to Fold a Pocket Map

p. 267

15

The Worst Journey in the World to the Last Place to Be Mapped

p. 269

How explorers found the South Pole without a map, and named the region after their families, friends and enemies.

Charles Booth Thinks You're Vicious

p. 288

16

Maps in All Our Hands: A Brief History of the Guidebook

p. 293

The majestic foldout engravings of Murray and Baedeker give way to another cartographic dark age.

The Biggest Map of All: Beck's London Tube

p. 307

17

Casablanca, Harry Potter and Where Jennifer Aniston Lives

p. 313

In which the Muppets perfect travel by map and we stalk the stars.

A Hare-raising Masquerade

p. 324

18

How to Make a Very Big Globe

p. 327

From scratch ... when you used to run a bowling alley.

Churchill's Map Room

p. 347

19

The Biggest Map Dealer, the Biggest Map Thief

p. 352

How tempting are maps-and just what kind of dealers and thieves do they attract?

Women Can't Read Maps. Oh, Really?

p. 366

20

Driving into Lakes: How GPS Put the World in a Box

p. 372

How we learned to watch the dullest in-flight movie ever-and, with GPS, the Dutch once again took over the world's mapping.

The Canals of Mars

p. 385

21

Pass Go and Proceed Directly to Skyrim

p. 394

Maps as games, from jigsaw puzzles to Risk, and why computer games may be the future of cartography.